A Horsham company has been fined $50,000 after a worker’s leg became entangled in an unguarded sweep auger, causing the calf muscle on his right leg to detach and lacerations requiring about 100 stitches.

A major hirer of industrial equipment, Coates Hire Operations Pty Ltd, has been convicted and fined $500,000 after a worker died when an elevating work platform rolled down the tray of a truck, tipped and crushed him.

WorkSafe is investigating the death of a worker in Epping this morning. The incident happened on Cooper Street at about 10am. It appears the 21-year-old worker was in the process of undertaking repair works to a truck when he sustained fatal crush injuries.

A Tatura company that placed an apprentice at risk of injury by allowing them to crawl along two aluminium planks over a suspended ceiling in the dark while trying to remove a live bird has been ordered to pay $20,000.

Two of Australia’s biggest construction companies have entered in to a $225,000 enforceable undertaking after two concrete panels, each weighting 11.3 tonnes, fell from a contractor’s truck in October 2006.